1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a parallel code conversion processing method and a parallel code conversion processing system. The present invention more particularly relates to a parallel code conversion processing method and system for transferring information of a given content at high speed between computer systems having different code schemes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Information systems in which a large quantity of information is transferred between computer systems of different code schemes have been used in recent years in order to make the overall information system more efficient.
When information is exchanged between computer systems having different code schemes in this type of information system, the format of the information must be converted into a code scheme that can be utilized by the computer system on the side receiving the data. This conversion requires that each computer system be provided with a code conversion processor.
FIG. 14 is a block diagram of an example of such a code conversion processor.
The code conversion processor shown in FIG. 14 is provided with an input/output processing unit 50 that processes the signals input to and output from the computer system that is provided with this code conversion processor (the host computer system), and with a data writing unit 51 that has a region to be written with the data processed by the input/output processing unit 50.
The input/output processing unit 50 comprises a single processor, for example. This input/output processing unit 50 receives information that has been output from a companion computer system that utilizes JEF code as its standard, for example, converts this information into SJIS code of the same meaning, and outputs the converted information to the host computer system that utilizes SJIS code as its standard. This input/output processing unit 50 comprises an input unit 52 into which is input the information output from the companion computer system, a code conversion unit 53 that converts, in record units, the code scheme of the information received from the input unit 52 from JEF code into SJIS code, for example, and an output unit 54 that outputs the code information that has been converted in code scheme from JEF code into SJIS code by the code conversion unit 53.
Meanwhile, the data writing unit 51 is provided with a data base 55 composed of a plurality of magnetic disk devices.
With this type of information system, when the information output from the companion computer system is input to the input unit 52 of the input/output processing unit 50 of the host computer system, the code scheme of this input information is converted by the code conversion unit 53 from JEF code into SJIS code, for example. When this code information that has been sent from the code conversion unit 53 is received, the output unit 54 converts this code information into an output signal. The output unit 54 then writes the information of the output signal in record units to a specified writing region of the data base 55 within the data writing unit 51.
However, with the information system described above, since the input of information, code conversion, and the output of information are executed in order by a single processor, the time it takes to convert a code scheme of the input information to different one increases along with the amount of information, so there is the possibility of diminished response of the information system as a whole.
In particular, since conversion processing from one code scheme to different one is what accounts for the majority of the processing involved in this type of information system, the processing speed for conventional processing had to be increased to increase the response of the overall processing, when the data of a companion computer system with a certain code scheme had to be converted to the data of the host computer system of different code scheme.